EMERYVILLE, CA – The discovery announced by the Harvard researchers represents an important scientific advance that will allow us to better understand how adult chromosomes are reprogrammed to an embryonic state and could potentially lead to a new method of deriving patient- and disease-specific stem cell lines. As the authors emphasize, however, this technology is not yet well-developed enough to replace current methods of deriving stem cell lines.

It is important that the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine remain free to conduct the critical research on stem cells that could help millions of Americans with disease and disability. The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine joins with Senator Dianne Feinstein and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in supporting a federal ban on human reproductive cloning, while permitting therapeutic research on human stem cells to continue.